by Henry Amon

Created on: September 17, 2009   Last Updated: September 19, 2009

Cleaning your computer's hard drive is a relatively simple, yet important task. Cleaning the drive keep's your computer running faster, keeps you from running out of space and makes things easier to find and organize. It's important to clean your hard drive on a regular basis because files tend to clump up fast, especially when you use the Internet often.

First, remove any programs that you do not need. Go to the Add/Remove Programs option in the Control Panel and look over all of the programs listed. Find programs that you no longer use and don't want. Select the program and choose Remove. This will take a few minutes and may prompt you about removing specific files. Often this process leaves some files behind. You can find better programs for free online that will better remove all of a programs files when you remove the program.

Revo Uninstaller is one example of a free easy to use program.

Open your browser to get rid of temp files that build up from searching the Internet. These directions are for Internet Explorer, but most browsers are similar. Go to the Tools men and choose Internet Options and then choose Delete under Browsing History. On the next menu that pops up choose Delete files next to Temporary Internet Files and delete cookies next to Cookies.

Right click on the Windows Start button and choose Explore. Select each hard drive and then right click and choose Properties. Click on the Disk cleanup menu and you'll be shown other files that can be deleted. Select the files you want to delete and click Ok.

You should also go through your computer and delete any files that you know you no longer need. It's a good idea to put all of your documents into one folder and then create subfolders to organize your files. This will help you find the files you need more easily and will allow you to safely delete document files that are not in the folder because you know you don't need them.

You can choose disk defragmenter from the Windows Accessories program list, but most newer versions of Windows don't have as many fragmenting issues as older versions. This can also be a very long and slow process. The benefit is that your hard drive will be faster, but with Windows XP service pack 2 and above it won't make a great deal of difference.

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